


Flame of the Forest

by lucius_complex



Series: XV [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romance, Sibling Incest, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1554584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Few knew the true colour of Loki’s hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [proantagonist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/proantagonist/gifts).



> A/N: Some of the original stories of Loki described him as being god of fire and magic, with red hair and eyes. Below are my imaginings, which I've tried to work into the Thor universe. I'm not sure if it worked. I figure my readers can be the judge. 
> 
> Random backstory I'm sure nobody is interested in: So I’d never have written my first Thorki save for some rant on Tumblr that truly got me really riled up. I wont link to it, but the comment trashed Thorki ships and insisted Frostiron was 'better' for being incest free, etc. What the hell. I really hate it when ppl trash other ships on 'moral' grounds. This is a fanfiction slash community. We're ALL deviants if you ask the Pope. 
> 
> So here's me shipping the pants out of Thorki out of sheer defiance. All ships are great *waves sparkly flag*

**Flame of the Forest**

> _Out of the ash_   
>  _I rise with my red hair_   
>  _And eat men like air._
> 
> _~ Slyvia Plath_

 

 

1

Thor knew, but he didn’t share. His mother had told him, when as a child he used to be deeply saddened by Loki’s secretive distance.

Thor knew, but the knowledge was his and his alone; he would share it with no other.

*

Even as children Thor recalled Loki and him sharing a stranger relationship than most. They were the closest of siblings; yet a strange and unbreachable distance apart. Thor's love and devotion was absolute, yet he couldn't shake the notion of something self-indulgent about it. 

He had watched his brother grow from tiny babe to slender sapling. He’d taken Loki’s tiny hands and shown him orchards of golden apples and where to find the nesting swallows in the eaves of windy turrets, and they’d played together; all the games that Thor could conceive within his youthful imagination. But even from young did Loki have a strange affliction of moods, a jolting fear of violent fires and loud thunder, and periods where he could not bear the company of any but himself.

Such periods of withdrawal always made Thor feel empty, and as Loki grew, his disappearances only increased. Thor lived through the days of Loki’s vanishings like nightmares, only waking up when his brother was returned to him.

Loki never explained himself, and Thor never succeeded in unearthing them from him. He returned the same way always; stiff limbed and pale as sheet, with damp lashes and the stamp of something brackish and scorched in his eyes.

But he _returns_ , and in time Thor learned to see it as merely the way Loki is.

It was his mother who taught him the notion of patience. One morning in lieu of the lessons that Thor detested she'd descended to the study to sneak him away; had stowed poppyseed cakes and sweetbreads drenched in honey for a picnic that she bade Thor never to reveal on torture of pain or death. Thor swore upon his wooded broadsword, on Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr his beloved goats, and finally on Loki himself, which drew a smile from his mother that lit his heart.

That afternoon, in a sun-kissed corner of his father's private gardens did Thor learn from his Queen mother the shadowy nature of secrets: how secrets had a life of its own, once it was born. How one could be preserved, with it's own sanctity and rules - and with diligence, transformed for the better. Thus did Frigga ensure that the memory of sticky fingers and laughter, the fond stories she whispered to Thor in a gentle voice, would always reside somewhere within him, to keep him sane and grounded when secrets darkened with age, as they inevitably would.

Thor shared his secrets too, now that he knew what name to give these underground rivers in the yet forming caverns of his mind. And so he told his mother of his disappointment and anger at Loki’s disappearances.

He was to be surprised by Frigga’s reply.

‘It is I and your father who sprits him away from you,’ his mother revealed, and Thor’s mouth fell open at the revelation. ‘Your brother suffers from a grave illness, a seizure of the mind and body that requires exceptional caring. Because his body and soul is weaved by magiks not truly Aesir, he cannot be treated here.’

In Thor’s young mind, the dominant concern was not of Loki’s origin but his absence. ‘Why can’t we take care of him here, in the castle? Why can’t I go with Loki?’

And Frigga explained to him the origins of Loki. She told him of Fárbauti, who called down thunder and flame with his hands, and Laufey, most slender and beautiful of seiðr wielders. She told him of grim wars and their often bloody repatriations, the unknowing treasure even gods sometimes leave behind in ignorance. And Thor grew sad when his mother told him of Loki’s fits, how his eyes would roll back and his body would spasm whenever fire struck down the trees or thunder the skies, how he would scream under the restraints they had no choice but to put upon him. How his watchers had to be careful to put out any flames that the child inadvertently sparked in his fits.

‘His father’s gifts are powerful, but they do him ill, and it will take much love and patience from us to balm it into healing.’

‘I would protect him,’ Thor said earnestly. ‘I would keep all such things away when I am King, and all will be well.’ And Frigga smiled and kissed his brow. Then she told him further of how Loki could not bear to look so strikingly similar in appearance to the fearsome Fárbauti, and so they had doused the scarlet fires of his hair, to aid his peace.

‘I shall keep all away. Loki belongs to us now, and not to Fárbauti or Laufey,’ Thor considered these new thoughts, and found that it pleased him.

‘He does, but know always that secrets are tools sharpened on both sides. See that whilst they give you comfort and strength, they do not cut your brother; you know how easily he wounds.’

And Thor promised this, for he has learnt a great lesson and could not wait to practice it.

*

Thor horded his new knowledge to himself, turned ideas around in his mind till they were smooth as pebbles, and when Loki was finally returned to him, gathered parchment to himself and bade Loki sit on the shallow knoll a short distance away, so he might try sketching him with a head of red hair.

He wasn’t very good. Loki had tried to see, but Thor had used his new word, _‘secret’_ , and watched his brother’s face turn to stone. And so he rejoiced at how much easier it had suddenly become to enjoy his brother’s company, now that he could pass Loki such looks of _knowing_ in his eyes and his brother would turn tractable, like a kitten held by the scruff of the neck.

As it turned out, this ‘ _secrets’_ was a very good thing indeed, for it was something only they had together, Thor quickly having forgotten his mother’s role. Suddenly he understood why his brother held on to so many, whilst he had only one, precious as it was.

But Loki has long known the nature of secrets because his very existence is one. Thor will catch up; he was bigger, faster, _older._

For a good number of months after the incident, Thor would squint at his brother whenever Loki looked away, trying to picture him as _other,_ trying to peer into his soul and divine such things that Loki might hide from him.

He thought it would change everything, but in truth it changed nothing, and Thor looked around for more of these new kenings, these ‘secrets’ that hides in plain sight: worlds existing within worlds, but none was so interesting to him as his own.

It seemed that no new knowledge could be gained that was more fascinating to Thor as the secret of Loki’s hidden fire.

*

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Flame of the Forest**  

> _And I am a smiling woman_   
>  _I am only thirty_   
>  _And like the cat I have nine times to die._
> 
> _~ Sylvia Plath_

 2

When they were of suitable age, the Council of Elders called upon both brothers to examine their worthiness as men and warriors of Asgard. The Trials of the Higher Powers they called it, an examination granted only to the most noble of lineages. To them that passed these trials the Norns themselves granted fate-altering gifts; powers unique to each warrior’s temperament and skills - and dominion over worthy fields.

Thor, who had been waiting his ‘whole life’ to be tested, could barely let past a day without bringing it up, to his brother’s bitter complaint. After all, they had been raised on songs and stories of the Trials. ‘Twas here that the Wyrds made Odin god of victory, battle and death, and here that most ancient Skuld herself, the eternal oracle, did foresee his father’s rise onto kingship as father of gods.

Thus did Thor find this disinterest from Loki unseemly, bordering on timorous, and loudly made his disdain known. His brother however, only laughed and called him a credulous, clamouring fool.

The swift-passing years had found Thor’s brother rising onto his own: tall, willowy, quick as a sprung trap with the graze of a gazelle, of snakes darting through grass. But their interests had diverged greatly in the intervening years; Thor now a young man who strode daily into the sparing rings of his ancestors with his father’s axe, whilst his brother haunted the Barri forests and the domiciles of old books, a pastime that Thor could not abide. And when he was not in these places, Loki now spent long hours hunched over fires, boiling potions and salves and exchanging them in the villages for shadowy things whose nature Thor could only but speculate.  His childhood fits he had found a way to yoke – what the most accomplished healers in the Nine Realms could not do Loki had wrought into the tapestry of his own accomplishments, and Thor was justifiably proud of his brother’s brilliance.

It was a pity he could tell no one about it. 

There was only one thing that marred Thor’s idyllic affections for his brother. Despite his growing talents did Loki remain sickly, and seemed destined to remain for the rest of his life. His illnesses showed both in body and mind, racked him with both blood-speckled coughs and fevers that brightened his eyes into exploding stars.

Ever did such bouts give onto Thor much distress and Loki long hours of exhaustion, shackling his brother to days or weeks of idleness ill-suited to his temperament. From this would rise bouts of black melancholia, fierce and sudden like the black-purple winds from Múspellsheimr that travelled yearly from the lands of Surtr and lassoed all in its path into fiery death. His curses flayed the air, words layering upon words like slow-acting agents that eroded and poisoned whomsoever they reached, sometimes for years to come.

None was spared this malice. And thus did Loki make his own bed of thorns to lie on, alienating any friends he had succeeded in making before this and undoing all of Thor’s previous efforts at endearing his brother to the company of others.

Years bore on, and still the unchanging looks of distrust on his companions faces whenever Loki was around drove Thor to despair.

*

Thor had been so excited about the Trials, he did not spared a thought for the struggle it would pose to Loki’s health until the day itself. They were both making ready in the antechambers, Thor with his axe, Loki with his confusing array of pouches and charms, when Thor looked up at the sounds of his brother attempting to stifle a cough and realised this grievous omission.

Suddenly he was afraid. The Trials were difficult, all knew – even men of renowned bravery would recount how other battles pale in comparison to this challenge in the driftwood forests before the unyielding Norns. Loki was quick-witted and powerful in seiðr, but he was no warrior, and Thor did not know the nature of the challenges they would face.

‘Brother, I fear for your cough.’

Loki looked up, an indecipherable flash in his expression that was quickly smoothed away. ‘It’s no more than usual, Thor. You usually do not even notice it.’

A tendril of shame curled around Thor’s breast, which he quickly shook away. ‘The Trails leave a grave effect upon the body, all know so. Tis not too late for you to extract yourself.’

‘And be called craven?’ Loki hissed in turn. ‘Not I.’

‘None will dare, brother. You are puissant in your magic and cunning in battle. All know so, and who dares say otherwise shall face mine wrath and the displeasure of Odin King!’

‘I am no maiden that requires an honorguard, ’ Loki said with sullen looks, but he relented and gave much cheer to Thor by adding with a smirk, ‘It shall be fine, brother. I am well prepared for this challenge. Perhaps even more so than you.’

‘I think amain brother, for we shall overcome the Trails together as we do in all things. Very soon we fast-bonded sons of Odin Allfather, shall be called gods of note and deserve the name!’

‘Aye, I scares can imagine a greater honour,’ Loki observed dryly, ‘than to defy death for the sake of finding longer ways to announce our titles.’

But Thor’s good spirits would not be stolen from him. ‘Come, you are as a cat who has been dropped into a well. What thinks thou of the tributes the Norns shall give to us two? What deeds shall the maidens sing of our glory when we emerge, or the praises that recount our histories for the tapestries?’

Loki thought about it for a moment. _‘_ That they came out _alive.’_

’Your japes will be the death of me,’ Thor snorted. ‘But we shall be victorious, for Odin’s axe sings with battle lust in mine hand and my brother stands beside me. This is a day we shall not forget.’

‘No,’ Loki drawled, sardonic and enigmatic in the inflection of his words as always. ‘It’ll not be a day we shall soon forget.’

*

Once they left the banners and cheering crowds and entered the driftwood forest, Thor was much chagrined when the path soon forced them to diverge. Thor could feel clearly the pull of one road upon him, a walkway laid with bright stones that seemed to lead past open meadows and trading villages. Something in the air hinted to Thor of adventuring, of mead and maidens and the laying low of monsters, and he was glad to soon be proving himself worthy of it.

But Loki’s attentions were incited by the possibilities of a different path; one barely deserving the name, for it snaked directly into a tight wedge of trees, dark and dank. Thor gazed into the deep oppressive silence of the woods and discerned that there would be nothing but the scratches of vines upon his face, roots that tripped up his feet, and mean-spirited creatures too small to do battle with.

‘Loki, let us choose the open roads, with room enough for me to swing my axe and the promise of honourable battles. This forest stinks of rot, and will only be full of foul things that fear the sunlight. Loki, come.’

‘Not I for the tedious endlessness of such open roads,’ Loki sneered. ‘Surely you did not expect us to be tested as one!’

‘Aye I did, for we excel together and would poorer do without the other. Brother I beg you, come with.’

But Loki shook his head, and instead threw at him a small pouch of some mysterious power.

‘Then brother, ‘tis clear our roads lay athwart of each other. But take this, it will aid you when bare strength fails. And Thor, be careful who you lend aid and who you embrace as ally, for the Norns are treacherous and likely to play us for fools.’

‘We are foolish only when we divide our strengths and company thus, Loki!’ Thor did holler angrily, but his stubborn brother only sauntered on afore, and heeded not Thor’s efforts to call him back. Resigned, Thor took the other fork and made his way past the open grounds. The fields were cloaked in fiery buses, painted in shades of autumn and dusk.

Presently came the sounds of growls and snarling from a distance, and Thor was gladdened, for it meant his trials had truly begun. He ran towards the fearsome sounds, until he came upon a clearing where a pack of magical beasts were about to set themselves on a hapless group of womenfolk. 

The monsters sensed his presence and howling, gave attack. 

Thor grinned that such creatures thought they could prevail against him. He raised his axe and brought them low. They came anon, with teeth and claw and fire, and Thor smote them again and laid a trail of blood on the forest floor.

When slaughter was done he looked up to find the clearing strewn with the vile and smoking carcasses of monsters. The other womenfolk had run away save for one who lay swooned in the clearing, and Thor picked her up as easily as he picked up a helpless bird, where she immediately revived and swore to be his maiden fair. She was beautiful, with hair red as the trees around her.

‘My lady, thou art safe.’

How she trembled like a leaf in his arms, and brought forth all of Thor’s protective instincts. ‘How shall I repay my lord, when all I have are the words of my lips and the clothes on my back?’

‘I need no incentive brave lady, save to see to your safety and happiness,’ Thor told her in his honest and forthright manner, and was delighted by the tremulous beauty of her answering smile.

‘Then let us be each other’s reward,’ the maid whispered with a voice like running water, and Thor tasted her lips and found them as sweet as river-water from Hvergelmir, even as her fair arms entwined him and brought him close.

The flesh and scent of her was alluring and the temptation grew upon him like vines. His hands roamed her body and she made hot moaning in his ears as they tangled into the underwoods, trial forgotten. With gusto he parted her milky thighs and did make wondrous love beneath the shade of an Oak tree, and it was glorious.

He forgot everything. There was no Asgard, no Norn, no shining prize or warriors welcome awaiting him. He had never been so happy nor so content that it seemed as years had passed, yet no time passed at all. The fair maiden was as familiar to him as his own kin, yet not familiar at all, and when she asked Thor to give up his new weapon and his princely crown and stay with her forever, the answer hanging on his tongue was _aye._

But he could not say the words for a memory pulled at him, although he could not explain its nature.

‘Me thinks I miss a name-‘ Thor fretted. But he could not recall it.

‘Then it cannot be important,’ his lady of the fey and scarlet eyes said as she pulled him close and kissed his lips. ‘Oh Thor, Thor. We could be happy forever, if only thou would consent to _forget.’_

‘Aye, and would I but for one name, sweet as Foxglove and as precious as the crown of mine ancestors, if I could but recall it. But I cannot, and it gnaws at the heart of me.’   

His scarlet lady murmured sweet platitudes upon his brow with a voice like a rippling river and Thor felt his lids fluttering, for when she spoke thus it often made him pleasantly drowsy and heavy-limbed.  ‘Forget, my liege. Forget, and take of thy pleasures in my arms.’ And Thor made love to his lady fair, with her red hair fanned out between them so that he could feel them always. In her was everything he needed.

Yet he could not forget.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Flame of the Forest**

 

> _Dying_
> 
> _Is an art, like everything else_
> 
> _I do it exceptionally well_
> 
> _I do it so it feels like hell._
> 
> ~ Sylvia Plath

 

3

Time passes, and still was Thor tortured by indecision. He loved his lady fair and made love to her often, and it tore his heart asunder to see her weep so sweetly on his chest. But still he remained assailed by doubts, slippery as fishes, and would not allow her tears to move his heart.

‘If you do not choose, then I fear the day that choice shall be taken from you,’ sighed his lady. ‘Why would you risk our happiness?’

‘Nay you misunderstand. It is the happiness of others I would not risk.’

Her eyes flashed in temper then, rising out of nowhere like a sudden and furious gale as she drew her naked body from him. ‘‘Then for the sake of your useless morality shall our lives be most _justly_ unhappy!’

Dismayed by this  sudden outpouring of viciousness, Thor pulled away, grievously stung. ‘What is the meaning of this? How came a fair maiden to speak thus to me?’

‘My lord!’ Her large doe eyes were instantly contrite. ‘I beg pardon, I lost myself-‘

But Thor thought then of his brother’s warning and spurred her, suspicious of her wiles. And when she hissed and tried to forcibly kiss him, he reached for Loki's pouch of un-named powders he had so carelessly discarded at the side of their bed, and flung into the enchantress’s face.

She screamed – a voice that raised the hairs on his neck with their strange familiarity.

‘You vehement fool!’ the witch cried, and tried to attack him, but Thor easily overpowered her and  threw her to the ground with force. She rapped her skull on the ground and her hair spilled like a river of flame over her, and was still.

‘My lady!’ Thor was immediately contrite, for he had not been raised to deal with women improperly. He knelt beside her and placing his arms around her trembling form, helped her rise. Then he saw her face, and with a loud cry scrambled back, for it was no faery woman that lay in his arms, but his own brother, though Loki was barely recognisable through the wild mane of red hair that flowed over his naked shoulders.  

‘Brother, how came you thus? Speak!’

Finally Loki opened his eyes, and Thor saw they were red as a maiden’s lips. Red as the hair that pooled like silk between them. His fair skin shone with such a golden light as to reflect the skin off Idun’s apples. But still Loki did not speak. Instead his eyes begged for Thor’s touch, irresistible in their desperate melancholia.

‘This is a most unholy quiz, I fain expected monsters, but face my own brother across the field! Who are you? Speak the truth, or face my wrath.’

Thor regarded the mute creature from a veil of hostility and growing lust. Never had he seen Loki so beautiful, and he found himself witlessly caressing the soft lengths of his brother’s hair between his fingers. He had waited years untold to see it, and now they scorched his eyes with their beauty, but what circumstances! What foul misfortune marred his fortune!

‘O Loki. Brother,’ he groaned, and the creature before him was bewitching in its beauty, sinuous and silent as a snake, and Thor could not stop stroking that velvet skin. He thrilled in the raising of his gooseflesh and shivering, he pried open his brother’s lips and drank of the nectar offered within, and the perfection of his lips only made Thor famished from the taste of other, far baser things.

Thor inserted two fingers and watched Loki suckle on them, growling his arousal at the twin sensations of wet and heat they provided.  

‘You are a base and cunning thing,’ he panted angrily as he stroked his brothers most intimate parts. ‘-to draw this out of me.’

He threw Loki onto his back and parting his thighs, entered him with savage satisfaction. The creature beneath him sobbed and pleaded into his shoulder with Loki’s voice, searing sounds that only provoked Thor’s great lust.

Does he not remember now that the Norns were the weavers of vile and wily tests, and would sink to nothing in their attempts to subvert a great warrior?

‘So this is why you wanted me to forget. How dare you wear his face, witchwoman. For this unforgivable thing I shall flay the flesh from your bones.’

Thor rode his brother relentlessly. He pulled at the thick mane on Loki’s back, handled them as if they were reins, and glorified as they tumbled wildly upon the shuddering frame. Many a times was he forced to resort to biting his own tongue to prevent from calling Loki’s name as he pumped the sweet and giving flesh beneath him.  Thunder rode around them, setting branches afire and enveloping the forest in yellow haze.

With every snap of thunder, the creature cried out as if afraid, voiceless begging amidst strikes of lighting as he trashed and undulated helplessly beneath Thor, seeking mercy or escape.  But Thor hardened his heart and with a grunt of triumph overcame him and rode him harder still. The vileness of the act only drove him on, his lust indistinguishable from the desire to punish, until at last his passion overtook him and he spilled his seed.

Loki wept through it, curling into himself as the cold trail of Thor’s pleasure dripped down his thighs and legs. Until finally the god recovered enough to stand up, where he scowled upon the figure on the floor.

‘Be silent! You cannot be Loki, but a foul creature from the underbelly of Hel.’ So saying did he grab a handful of the rich red hair, from whence he dragged Loki out of their dwelling tent and into the open amidst the flash of thunder. And the craven shade that wore his brother’s face did cower under the sounds of thunder, and cried out to Thor with wide opened arms, while the lightning flew around them like a great cloud of angry firebirds suddenly released.  

‘Brother,’ the vile, sweet-bodied creature screamed its terror, ‘brother have mercy _please!’_

Rain and fire poured down upon them, and Thor lifted his arms in exultant tribute, ready to receive the gifts of the Norns. He felt the pull of strange powers, smelt the burnt air and the ancient magics of his people crawling under his skin.

Thunder struck the ground before his feet, from which a roaring blaze of fire emerged: amidst it, a weapon forged by the wild and merciless hammer of Nature’s rule. Mjölni, the distant rumble of thunder called it. Here was his reward at last!

And he rode lighting like a chariot, flung them like javelins from the skies, for he was Thor, god of  thunder, born of Odin Allfather and righteous in his power.

He does not notice the smoke raising in Loki a terrible coughing as the witch crawls away, only that its attemps to escape must be circumvented. Summoning his new powers, he plants a cage of lightning rods around the creature who still refused to relinquish his brother’s fair form. Trapped thus in this prison of his greatest fears does Loki backs away, then stumbles onto the ground, gather his whipping hair around him in an attempt to hide his shame.

The sight incenses Thor, who knows that from this day onwards, with the reception of his most blessed gifts had also been revealed his darkest secret.

‘Does thou think such feeble illusions will protect you, _monster?’_   he roared, and lifting his new weapon, summoned lightning into the cage, and set it on fire.

The gruesome screams of the witch rendered the air, and the ground shook, till Thor could barely stand. And he raised his hammer again and summoned more thunder – until the woods was a smoking pyre, until the screams died down at last.

Until silence reigned.

Shaken, Thor grasped his new hammer, finding comfort there. It was over now. The test was over; the devil defeated.

With an arm that could barely hold its weight, Thor pointed Mjölni to the skies.

‘Take us home,' he commanded, and the hammer flew him high above the forest at speed.

When he alighted upon the edge of the forest it was to the defending cheering of his people, and Norns placed upon Thor a crown of stars and told him his main dominions would henceforth be thunder and strength, though he was also to be god of fertility – something that Thor little understood at the time – and that men would forevermore invoke his name for protection; that he did understand, and was glad of it.

Proudly Thor lifted his hard-won weapon to the crowds, the mountain crusher known as Mjölni, raising a cheer that rang out to the skies.

But when the cheers died down and his duties release him did Thor seek Loki out, only to discover his brother had not yet alighted the woods. Thor waited, and when the customary hour came and went and the crowds mummer between themselves and finally went home, still Loki did not show.

Long did Thor wait at the exit of the forest, well beyond the dying sun, his new accolades forgotten as the worry climbed upon him like ants. 

*


	4. Chapter 4

**Flame of the Forest**

 

 

 

 

>  
> 
> _There is a charge_
> 
> _For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge_
> 
> _For the hearing of my heart—_
> 
> _It really goes._
> 
>  
> 
> _And there is a charge, a very large charge,_
> 
> _For a word of touch_
> 
> _Or a bit of blood._
> 
> _~ Sylvia Plath_

 

 

4

At last Loki emerged at night, when the moon sailed high across the skies. But he was no longer as he entered.

Loki emerged red of hair and eyes, moon-skinned, listless and loose of limb; and Thor found him fearfully glorious, a binder of souls. And he found him frighteningly similar in appearance to the witch that he had slayed as part of his trials in the forest.

It was as if the fey lady had risen again, mocking the Norn’s gifts to him and burning to ash the taste of victory in his mouth.

‘Brother, thou art-’

But Loki merely waved a vague hand and continued walking as if he were a drifting spirit.

Thor tried to speak, to ask the questions running like wilder beast through the caverns of his brain, but he was struck dumb by the listless, airy expressions on Loki’s face, so unlike the sharp and quick mannerisms his brother usually sported. Loki walked as if in a daze, and though his brother held his head up high and seemed utterly indifferent to his changed appearance, by the time they cleared the woods he was trembling with each step, ruby eyes alight with horrors his tongue has no will to repeat. 

‘Brother, talk to me,’ he pleaded. ‘I have worried so for you, and refused to leave though all else have.’

But his flame haired sibling would not speak, only put one foot in front of the other as if his life depended on movement. Tracks of blood wept from his eyes; a more gruesome sight Thor has never seen.  After a half dozen steps he finally collapsed and Thor caught him with a cry, fearing beyond all measure for never had he seen his brother swoon. He carried him in his arms like a rag doll, heart pounding to such extent that he felt not the slightest weight of his precious burden.

Presently Loki came to consciousness, but instead of agreeing to be taken back to the castle, begged to be taken to the shallow hot pools where they had once whiled away many hours as youthful straplings, soaking away their post-battle sores after long hours of training in the fields.

‘Oh I fear for what the Norns have wroth on you, brother.’ Thor whispered, his heart crushed with fear that Loki had seen what transpired in the woods. ‘I fear greatly.’

‘Fret not over me,’ Loki whispers cryptically. ‘It is a faithless sentiment, and pointless. The Norns do as they will.’

Thor did not understand these strange kenings of his brother’s time in the woods. ‘Were you abandoned in your tests? Did the Ancient Ones not confer upon you suitable gifts to suit your skill? There is no shame, brother, in honorable defeat.‘

‘Worry you so over your weaker brother? Over me passes dominion of magic, and fire,’ Loki announced this woodenly, as if not only to Thor but others around him as well, though no one was around. ‘As well as tricks and treachery. Perhaps you may question the  _honor_  of such victories as compared to yours.’

‘Brother-‘

But Loki merely waved a listless hand again. ‘I wish to take a bath, Thor. Will you see that I do not slip under?’

‘I will protect you, as always. You have nothing to fear from me.’

A strange and faraway smile passed Loki’s lips. ‘Good,' he whispered softly. 'Good.’ 

He followed his brother‘s strange new form – familiar yet so alien - into the hot pools, dark water surrounded by dark stone and darker trees. Hot steam rose from the water’s surface but Loki wades into the heat without flinching, he whose skin had always been so sensitive to the hot pools. Thor crouched by the water and watched him, conflicted by shades of protective and uneasy feelings that tumbled like leaves over him.

For an age, nobody spoke. Thor felt as he had been struck dumb, his mind separated from the bulky wall of his body. There was something deeply unmanning about the thick and secretive air in this gloaming.

Uneasy was Thor to see his childhood haunt thus sullied. And yet his brother said nothing, so Thor endured, not wanting to be the one to break the silence.

A decay of fallen leaves littered the grounds and floated upon the surface of the lake like confetti, tossed gently midst the lapping waters and the steam. The sight filled Thor with foreboding, the way it bled its virulent hues upon the merciless earth. In the darkness Mjölnir glowered sullenly, as if warning him of the presence of evil.  

Presently, when as the hours drifted unchecked and his head was heavy with the effects of steam, his mind lulled almost into sleep did Thor finally become cognizant of his brother stirring.

Loki’s eyes roiled in wild circles within his skull; sulfur and volcanoes. His body twitched as strange expressions rose and fell from him like mist, harbinger of ill fortune. The telling of woe. The death of all things, a seer of patterns fundamentally broken, a vessel shattered.

‘He killed me, brother,’ Loki did whisper from bloodless lips as tears rolled down his pale, thin face, breaking upon the waters below. ‘He took it all-‘

‘What say you?’ cried Thor. A more grievous rage he’d never felt. ‘Say but who did you wrong, brother, and though they be the elders or the Allfather himself, they shall feel the wrath of Mjölnir!’

‘Everything that was me,’ Loki moaned, and his finally did his breath turned to sobs. ‘Oh the nines, I am unmade by this vile night! But if I could have died within those flames- if it had granted me sweet release- if I had never been born-‘

Thor felt has if his heart had been cleaved in two, as he stepped into the burning waters to lay protective hands upon his brother. ‘Loki,  _say you such things!_ Would thoust leave me to wander all the years of eternity in savage grief? _’_

‘Yes! Yes! I would have your bottomless sorrow, if I could never have this day. O my heart is torn asunder! My life is blackest gall!’ And Loki screamed and clawed, turned his unseeing hatred on him, though Thor knew his brother was not truly speaking to him.

‘Loki, stop – Loki, sweet brother-‘

In desperation did Thor wrench both his brother’s hands in his own, and just as abruptly did Loki’s wild strength suddenly give way, and his voice turned into broken mourning.

‘It is too late brother, too late.’

‘Then let us avenge you,’ Thor said, his voice muffled as he whispered into the nest of red hair shaking beneath him. He closed his eyes and inhaled their strange perfume, found his face and lips greedy for its soft tumble. Slowly, he found his own hands gathering unbidden around Loki’s wet form, cradling his waist and exceedingly pleased with their burden.

‘Be not a feared for I will smite the devil where he stands. I swear, my brother.’

And Loki raised his lips and laughed hysterically even as he sobbed as if his heart would break. Thor did not understand, and upon witnessing this great sorrow his heart broke in mutual sympathy. He gathered Loki close to him; Loki who was naked, weeping and wet, and yes, beautiful, mumbling such platitudes that his harried mind could conjure in the circumstance. And Thor held him close as he shook apart, tenderly turning his eyes away, into the inky midnight of the water, to spare Loki the shame.

Perhaps if Thor had known it was the last time he would ever see Loki cry, he would not have spared him this privacy. He would not have been so generous.

Presently into the silence did Loki whisper in a daze; ‘Thoust would lay raise hands against highest Asgard for me.’  His eyes were cracked gemstones, the wheezing of his lungs had never been more pronounced .

‘I would leave this land and every land burning brother, for you. I swear upon Mjölnir.’

His brother closed his blood red eyes. Exhaustion made his voice soft, almost heartbroken to Thor’s ears.

‘Fool. You’ve learnt nothing from the Trials.’

‘Rest, Loki. I will watch over you.’

And Loki would never tell him what happened that day in the forest, for from that day he kept all things to himself, gained rigidity to his carriage and a tightness of features that would always squeeze from Thor’s chest a pressure of wanting to weep.

*

Despite the tribute from the Norns that laurelled him in fame and the recognition of his peers, Loki remained the same as he was: frail and contemptuous; desperate as always to hide perceived weaknesses and react to imagined slights where little to none exist. His brother’s most tender voice were saved only for murmurings of magic and sedir - rare as they were before, Thor has heard no kind world or gentle expression from him hence. 

His long mane of red hair did Loki spell back into glossy black with sedir, and how Thor mourned the river of scarlet once again denied him, the memory of its allure hazy as smoke, yet vice-like in its grip over his voiceless longing.

And so time flew apace, and in the months that followed Thor found himself following Loki, falling always a step or three behind so that he may watch black hair undulating on his brother’s slender shoulders and imagine them red. This aspect of himself embarrassed Thor - here is he, most kingly of beings, heir to Mjölnir and firstborn son of the wisest of gods, and his purpose is glorious and his fate great. 

Yet he finds himself eaten alive by strange and taunting imaginings, over which sword and hammer has no power.

Often did Thor try to reach his brother, to pull him back into their old ways from youth, or older still, the undertakings of childhood comforts, but always Loki always spurn him, harsh and cold as the white blade of winter.

And then he would vanish. And he would not bring Thor.

Loki’s absence filled his brother with desolation, who had not the means to find him, nor the skills to persuade him. Thor tried to make his disappointment about Loki, his weaknesses and his… deviance, but he knew deep in his heart this was not true.

All he could think of, all he could dream about was the desire to look upon Loki’s true form again, to touch that river of fire and be scorched by it.

And Thor knows the old world has been burnt away, never to be regained save in memory. 

*

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


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